Thursday, February 28, 2013

Dad is going to be my guest blogger today:
As some of you may know - I'm kind of crazy about grammar (because my dad made me that way). Growing up, my dad taught me the importance of 'good grammar'. If you're wondering, I am most likely silently judging you if you mix up your / you're.

Don't worry, dad - I wouldn't be this mean.

And here's my dad's story:
One morning, when Faith was about 3 years old, I was standing at my bathroom sink, going through my daily ablutions. Faith sometimes liked to watch me shave … there's something fascinating to kids about fathers and shaving. I'm an electric razor guy but Faith still enjoyed watching. On this particular day she was standing at the door watching me when she suddenly disappeared. Only seconds later she was back and tugging at my clothes (or towel, or whatever I was wearing … it's over 20 years ago so I can't remember, although she probably does).

"What darlin'? I asked.
She mumbled something that was lost in the drone off the shaver. I turned it off.
"What is it, Faith?"
"Daddy - your alarm!"
Crap. I must have forgotten to turn it off. "Is it going off?" I asked her.
"No daddy... it's going ON!"
Little did I know that this would foreshadow the grammar dragon-slayer that she would turn out to be. I'm so proud.

There you have it, friends. At the end of the day, if I offend all of you with my grammar dragon-slaying ways - at least my dad is proud. ;)

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

So yesterday was Monday... and let me tell you right now that it was definitely a Monday.
A big, fat, sucky, Monday. But I'm over it, I'll get over it.

Basically anything and everything that could go wrong, went wrong. I didn't sleep because our landlord (and wife) are in Hawaii for two weeks and their 19 year old daughter is home alone. She had friends over last night, and lets just say that their party-for-two didn't end until 1:00am(ish). So when my alarm went off at 5:36 (I like weird alarm times) - I was a little out of it. My day, unfortunately, started on the wrong side of the bed. Rude.

Anyway, like I said - it was one of those days. I discovered a huge mistake that I made last week at work, and spent the day worrying about it... fun stuff. Well at about 10:00am I discovered that one of my cute pearl earrings was missing. I got really sad, but then found it in my scarf about 15 minutes later. Scarves definitely come in handy. When I found my earring, I kind of did a little happy dance:

You all know I like to dance whenever I can

So I find my earring, and start the pursuit of the back for the earring. After an unsuccessful search for the back of my earring, I gave up. Most people would probably take the other earring out and put them away... not me. I liked the cute earrings, they completed my simple outfit.

Look at how genuinely excited I am to have my earring back

So I needed a quick fix. When you're sitting in an office and don't have much to work with, you try and make do. It was either tape, or glue. So tape it was. I wrapped a completely non ghetto piece of tape around the back of the earring so it wouldn't fall off.

This picture in the mirror is probably definitely the most awkward picture I've ever taken. I have no words - oops? You can basically see the tape behind my ear - I mean you can't 'really' see it, but for my sake - pretend that you can.

Guys, I'm going to be honest and tell you that I don't even remember what the point of this post was. I think it was something like: sometimes we all just have days where we need to put tape on our ears for the sake of beauty, and that's okay. Don't hate, don't judge. Oh, and sorry I'm not sorry that I had tape stuck to my ear for 8+ hours and I'm not embarrassed to publicly admit it.

Friday, February 22, 2013

I have failed at blogging this week, and for that - I am sorry.
I planned on doing my Erin Condren Life Planner review this week... but didn't finish it. I have a draft sitting in my post section that I'll get to some time next week I'm sure. Also... I didn't blog on Wednesday or Thursday - oops! I didn't mean to skip out on all of you lovely people, I just somehow got distracted by life... or something.

Anyway...

HAPPY FRIDAY

I'm clumsy, but of course you all know this by now - especially since this happened. I'm sorry to say this friends, but I don't currently have another bus story for you right now. But I'll see what awkward situations I can get myself into sometime soon... wait that's a lie!
I just remembered that I had a slight bus incident this week!
On Wednesday, on the bus obviously, I was stuck standing near the back. The bus was crowded - like 80 people, I swear. I was texting a friend with one hand, and holding my lunch-bag/purse with my other hand. No hand holding onto the pole because I'm feeling like a boss that day and the driver is pretty good.
Then it happens: the bus driver has to slam on his breaks and TURN A CORNER. At first, I stumbled a bit - but then as we're turning the corner I fall backwards and reach out to grab a hold of the pole. Don't worry guys - I was able to grab the pole, but somehow I managed to swing my lunch bag (that was carrying two Glass containers from Tuesday & Wednesday's lunches). The lunch bag had a mind of it's own, I swear - so the bag swings, hits the guy beside me (oops) then proceeds to hit the man sitting in the seat in front of me. I missed his face by about 6 inches. A Subway sub. I missed his face by only a Subway Sub. Both of the guys look at me, I apologize, laugh it off, crawl in a hole and die and ride the rest of the way home with poise, dignity, and grace... without falling on anyone else. But I definitely stumbled once or twice. Clearly, I shouldn't stand on the bus.

Anyway, the whole point of this clumsy-talk was to discuss the amount of bruises that I get on my legs. I will swear up and down that I didn't hurt myself! I can't understand where that bruise of the day came from - but usually if I think about it, I'll remember. Perhaps it was the the door I walked into, the step that I tripped up, or the table that I walked into.

Last night, I really hurt my knee on our coffee table. I was walking - pantless, oh come on people... I was home alone. Anyway, I walk pantless from the washroom, to the kitchen (walking through the living room) to grab pants from the dryer, while I'm brushing my teeth. Now, this is probably where I went wrong. I shouldn't be doing this many things at one time. Walking is a feat all on it's own - throw in brushing my teeth and putting on pants at the same time? Disaster.

Clearly, my peripheral vision was a bit off last night (ha! pun intended), and I smashed my shin on the corner of the coffee table. I scream, spit toothpaste all over my clean shirt, and hobble back to the washroom. I finish brushing my teeth while cursing the awful pain in my leg, and my newly stained shirt. I go back to my bedroom, grab a tissue and start to pour some water from my 'leak-proof' water bottle onto it so I can dab it on my shirt. Well, my leak-proof water bottle spilled all over me, my shirt, my newly put on pants... and my keyboard. WTF, right? Luckily, my keyboard is somehow waterproof and it is 10000% fine.
I stand up - 'brush' all of the water of my clothes, dab the stain off my shirt (since I have a sufficient amount of water to soak up the toothpaste), and sit back down.
This is the point in the story where I should have something quirky to say, and share what lesson I learned in this process - but I've got nothing. Absolutely nothing. I'm clumsy, and I know it - I might as well embrace it.

That was my Thursday evening, and let me just say TGIF.

I'll try not to fall on the bus, hit anyone with my lunch bag, or smash my knee on the table. I can't promise that I won't trip over the 'step' into the elevator (like I did on Tuesday), or walk into my desk (like I did on Monday), or shut the washroom door on my hand.. which I've obviously never done. I promise to try and be careful, but chances are - I'll have some kind of ridiculous story for you next week.

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Last night I was looking on Instagram and noticed that my pictures have been pretty colourful lately. I love posting my #OOTD (outfit of the day) a lot lately, and I have to smile at all of the colour in my wardrobe. I can't help but think that my grandmother would be so happy to see my daily outfits.

For the longest time my wardrobe mainly consisted of black, and grey. About two years ago I started incorporating purple, but that was it. My grandmother didn't like seeing anyone in black, especially not her granddaughter. I can't tell you how many times that sweet woman asked me to wear pink, red, or blue and I would just laugh. 'I don't look good in colour' I'd tell her, but she'd just shrug and smile.

These are clothes that I now own...

Last year my grandmother passed away. She made it clear that absolutely nobody could attend her funeral wearing black (also, it wasn't a funeral - it was a celebration of her life). I got the news that she had passed, packed my bags, hopped on a flight, and flew across the country (6,000+km) in about 10 hours. Once I got to Nova Scotia, my dad made it absolutely clear that I was not allowed to wear black to the funeral. I only brought black pants and jeans back to Nova Scotia. No Black, okay... jeans it was. Now for shirts, I only had black shirts. 'A-Ha!', I found a black and white floral shirt. My dad said it wasn't acceptable, so I went shopping and bought a bright pink ruffled tank top, and a bright blue ruffled tank top. I work the pink tank top and jeans (I know, it doesn't sound right) to my grandmothers celebration. Despite the fact that it wasn't what you would normally classify as 'appropriate' to wear when somebody passes away - I knew that Granny would have been happy that I wasn't in black.

Fast forward three months to the day that I fell in love with coloured pants. I found red jeans at the store and decided 'Why not?. I quickly became obsessed with coloured pants, and I started buying numerous pairs. I can't even remember the last time I bought normal jeans.
This addiction honestly came out of nowhere and now (on a daily basis) I'm wearing Coral, Mint Green, Fuchsia, etc... I love it, and I know Granny would be so happy.

A couple of said outfits:

Anyway, the whole point of this post was to say: Apparently I've always had a colourful personality and my family has known it my whole life.
This is a quick story that my dad wrote about me when I was a kid:

Side-note: Dad asked me to title this story 'Duh'.

When Faith was 3 or 4, her older brother was being a bit chippy with Debbie and I about something. Faith sat quietly (and joyfully) as we chastised him for his poor behaviour. He retorted, as kids are want to do, that his sister didn’t get the same treatment and that he was being singled out … that she was somehow, favoured(Obviously I was your favourite child, dad). We assured them both that we were consistent and fair. He couldn’t let it go and persisted in a highly sarcastic tone, “Faith is so perfect and never gets in trouble, but I always get yelled at...” We chided his attitude and told him to stop being sarcastic.

“Well at least I understand what that means. I bet Faith doesn’t even understand what sarcasm is.” Then looking at her, he taunted in the most sarcastic of voices, “Do you?”
We had to stifle our snickers as she, with comedian-like timing, did a perfect imitation of a teenage Valley-girl as she tossed her hair and twisted her little body with hand on hip and said, “Duh!”

Yep – she understands sarcasm.

I think what we take from this story is that I've always had an understanding of sarcasm and I most definitely have always had a colourful personality.

Monday, February 18, 2013

No mumbles and grumbles today. It's a new week - lets all enjoy it : )

I'd like to start this post by saying Happy 93rd Birthday to my adorable Papa. I love you more than anything and I'm sorry that I'm not in Halifax to celebrate with you today.

Papa and I - Circa 1989

Papa and I - Circa 2007? 2008? 2009? Not sure.

On Saturday night I grabbed some dinner and drinks with two of my favorite guys. While we were chatting about life, it came out that I have insomnia (most nights). Ambrose suggested that I try meditation. Ha! - I literally laughed in his face. Meditate? I asked - You want me to meditate? Ambrose proceeded to explain the proper ways of meditation and he suggested that I try it during nights when I can't sleep. While I appreciate the suggestion, I don't know if I'm able to concentrate long enough to actually achieve any true meditative state.

Let me explain what I mean....

When you tell me to sit in the quiet - no music, no talking, no nothing - this is most likely how I'll act.

I have tried meditating before and it was never successful: I always start out great. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, eyes closed, slow steady breathes. One Mississippi, Two Mississippi, Three Mississippi, Four... I think I probably last about 30 seconds and then I open my eyes. I stare straight ahead and focus on my wall/carpet. Everything is calming and my brain is almost clear when I think (and yes, I swear that these are real thoughts): The carpet is threaded so neatly, then I will think about it for a second and then how was this carpet made? what kind of thread do they use? how long did it take to make this?

Side-note: I've discovered that the biggest issue that I have with silence is that I ALWAYS want to be listening to music. I also have this desire to sing, dance, you name it... I just love music. I have to sit in an office for at least eight hours every day and I can't listen to music. I may look calm and professional on the outside, but on the inside I'm having a constant dance party:

Anyway, back to the meditation: I sat there for about two minutes, just wondering how the carpet was made, and why paint starts out as 'white'... When I started this whole relaxing meditation thing, I had a lot on my mind, and when I ended I had even more on my mind. Now I had to go to Google to figure out how carpet is made, and how paint gets tinted.
I don't want to ruin the surprise for all of you, so I'll let you Google that stuff on your own.

This is why I haven't tried meditating again. It wasn't exactly relaxing, and without being able to have a dance party, it was quite boring. But, I trust Ambrose and his alternate methods, so I will test them out and hopefully they help.

See you all tomorrow - I'll be posting my 'Canadian' Review of the Erin Condren - Life Planner.

Shout-Out to any of my colleagues reading this... if you ever want to have a dance party, I'm your girl.

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Lezbehonest for a second guys, I'm single (hi there bachelors ;) ). Valentine's Day has never been my favorite holiday. It's a Hallmark holiday about a fat baby that shoots people with an arrow... I'm sorry, what? Do you need to be drunk to understand the point of this holiday?

Don't get me wrong - I'm definitely not bitter in the slightest. I always make the best of every Valentine's Day, and when I was in Elementary school I loved this 'holiday'. We always got to have 'craft time' the day before V-Day: we would decorate a brown paper bag with our name, hearts, glitter, confetti, etc. and tape it to the front of our desk to collect all of our pretty little Valentines that we would get from our classmates. Any day that I got to glue glitter and hearts to something, was a good day in my book. But making a craft that is used to collect pretty little cards from your BFF's and cute boys? Best school-day holiday, ever.

I digress...

Since all of you disgustingly adorable couples are so full of love today, I figured I should write about the time I was in love.

It feels like it was a lifetime ago, honestly. The day I met my love, was a life-changing day. You could say it was love at first sight, and it was a sure thing. We instantly had that connection, and I'm pretty sure the feelings were mutual.

We spent every second that we could together. Perhaps that's where we went wrong. I think that the love was too strong, and far too intense. If we hadn't been so inseparable then perhaps when things ended, it wouldn't have hurt so badly. This is what my mom has reassured me of, and I can't disagree. The love that grew inside me, so fast and so strong, was a pure kind of love. The kind of love that cannot be duplicated. It was uncomplicated, it was fun, and to me: it was perfect. I hope I can someday find this kind of love, again.

I can honestly say that I've never been the same since then... and, most likely, I'm the person that I am today as a result. I most likely would still be the same person whether I had this spoon or not, but I feel as though it may have been a pivotal point in my growth.

Did you catch my last paragraph? I didn't think so... I'll just make this clearer. This is the point where I tell you that my true love was a spoon. But guys, it was not just any spoon. It was a big, shiny, red Dairy Queen spoon.

This spoon was my life - for the whole 48 hours that I had it. It went EVERYWHERE that I went. When you're three years old, it's perfectly acceptable to have such a deep love for an inanimate object, right? RIGHT? Okay, moving on...

Our tragic love story came to an abrupt halt when my brother, who was five at the time, decided that my love for said spoon was not okay. So he took my spoon, and snapped it in half. I cried, no, sobbed... for hours minutes, but it seemed like an eternity to my parents, I'm sure. Don't worry, my brother was punished for this, and lets just say that one of his toys accidentally broke. You've got to love having parents who believe in 100% fairness between their children - despite the fact that my favorite toy was just a red Dairy Queen spoon, which I'm pretty sure my parents replaced for me.

To this day, my brother is still bitter that his favorite G.I. Joe was broken in order to teach him a lesson about breaking his sisters things. I don't think my brother will truly ever get over it, but it's okay because I'll never really get over the loss of my dear red spoon.

Note to my future husband (if you're reading this): I will love you, but now you will understand that I will always have a certain type of love in my heart that can never be duplicated. You can try, and I hope you do, but you probably won't succeed.

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Sometimes customers can be real jerks, and you wish you could yell at them - but you can't. So instead, you act as polite as possible, and the second you hang up the phone, you look a little something like this:

Today's blog is brought to you by my daddy for another 'episode' of Retirement Ramblings.

Being newly retired I've been enjoying some fond trips down memory lane (in my head, of course). This morning I recalled four funny stories, all from the mid to late 1980s when I worked at the weather office in Bedford, NS. I thought I would share:

I got a call from a man who wanted to know the water temperature at Lawrencetown beach, along the eastern shore of Nova Scotia. Canada was still in its infancy with the metric system and we were required to ask our citizens which units they wanted. Being a good and dutiful public servant I responded by asking him, "would you like that in Celsius or Fahrenheit?" He cheerfully replied, "Oh it doesn't really matter, I'm quite comfortable with both sets of units … but I guess you can give it to me in kilometres." I gave him the Celsius number but choked back the laughter while wondering if the number would mean anything to him at all.

Sometimes our citizens (clients) humble us with their confidence in our abilities. A meteorological colleague in Ontario once summed up his job perfectly, "Peter, my job is to manage expectations."

He is spot on. We all know that it's the national pastime to roast the weatherman and make small talk about how weather forecasts are useless. The reality is that the majority of people have an unrealistic expectation of our capacity. Case in point … one of the guys received a call in February inquiring about detailed weather conditions in New Brunswick in July. Well the only credible information that is possible 5 months in advance is a climatological perspective about what happens on average, so my coworker provided this generic, but still useful, information. The citizen picked up that the weather expert was not providing an authoritative nor definitive answer about what the day would behold, meteorologically speaking. He tried convincing this citizen that such details were beyond the scope of reality. The citizen really didn't buy it but acquiesced to a generic answer. An hour later my buddy had a similarly ludicrous call inquiring about detailed weather in June in PEI. Everyone in the office had a long chat about the unrealistic expectations that exist out there in the public. The final straw though was a call from a woman who was helping her daughter plan her wedding. The daughter was getting married on the 3rd Saturday in August in Halifax (yes … about 6 months into the future) and she wanted to know what the weather would be like in Halifax. Without hesitation our expert questioned, "what time will the wedding be?" Needless to say the rest of us were rolling on the floor.

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

You may have noticed that I wasn't around here yesterday, I took a day off since it was a Stat Holiday here in BC... Family Day. A three-day weekend is certainly always a treat. I had plans to get some Budget stuff and some Blog stuff done yesterday, but unfortunately I didn't get around to it. Instead, I ended up doing food prep for the whole week and I went shopping/ran errands with Amanda.

This basically sums up my weekend. Yup.

I decided to write a list of the worst jobs of all timeFive Jobs I'd Never Want. I was inspired to write this post after a trip to Costco on the weekend.I apologize if one of these jobs is your actual career. My condolences to you.

Five Jobs I'd Never Want:

1. Food Sample Server at Costco. I would think that doing this job at any store would be awful, but it is about 8273856x worse at Costco. COSTCO SHOPPERS ARE VULTURES. That's all I have to say about that.

2. Fish Market Clerk. I'm not a seafood person. It would be bad enough having to look at fish all day long - but, if I had to come home from work every day smelling like fish, I'd probably cry.

3. Cart Runner. You know those poor kids who have to run to the parking lot every 5 seconds to gather all of the carts that everyone just took outside? Yeah, I couldn't do that. I'd probably get angry every time someone left the store with a cart. I'd most likely yell obscenities at them instructing them to return the cart to the store instead of leaving it stranded in the middle of a parking spot (or a mile away from the store). Not to mention - people in parking lots are jerk-wads. I've seen so many impatient drivers almost kill those cart running kids. Shame on you, impatient and lazy people.

4. Nightclub Janitor. I cannot even begin to imagine the gross things that these people have to clean up everyday. It would be bad enough to clean up after clean/sober people everyday (I'm thankful that they do), but to clean up after drunk idiots who shouldn't have had those last two jager-bombs? Yeah, you couldn't pay me enough to clean nightclub washrooms on a Monday morning. Woof.

5. Taylor Swift's Manager. This may sound weird to some of you, but I cannot stand this girl. Her music is horrific. We are never, ever, ever getting back together... more like I will never, ever, ever listen to your music. If I had to be her manager and listen to her music all the time - I would probably cry.

Friday, February 8, 2013

Why did the Mushroom get invited to all of the parties?'Cause he's a fungi!

But seriously guys, I'm funny. Come on... that was good...

For as long as I can remember, I have really disliked mushrooms. I've tried to like them - honestly, I have - but I just can't bring myself to enjoy them. The texture (especially when cooked) is just disgusting. Why are they slippery? It's confusing and gross at the same time.

I'm no mushroom-expert, but I'm pretty sure there are a lot of different kinds of mushrooms, and really... why? Isn't one kind enough? No? Well to me - they're all the same. Disgusting.
I don't like mushroom flavored things, raw mushrooms, cooked mushrooms, heck - I probably wouldn't even like the 'fun' kind of mushrooms that get you high (don't worry mom, I've never tried them!).

Like I said, I have tried to 'like' them numerous times since everyone in my life seems to be obsessed with them and I'm always the annoying kid who picks them out of my food. Basically every time I try and eat them, my face looks a little something like this:

Fun fact: I made this EXACT same face when I tried a Caesar for the first time (and only time). That drink seriously should not exist, I'm pretty sure I hated it 100x more than any mushroom I've ever had. Legit.

The good thing about having people in my life who LOVE mushrooms: they eat them for me.
My cousin, Jennifer, and roommate, Amanda, are my go-to mushroom eaters. I don't have to worry about mushrooms being in any of my meals anymore because if I have one of them with me, they'll eat the mushrooms for me.Note to self, requirement for future husband: must be willing to eat my mushrooms, but must not force me to cook them for him.

Thursday, February 7, 2013

I've had a few people ask for the recipe for this delicious snack/meal. This is one of my favorite inventions so far. Keep in mind that this is completely made up, and I did not follow any recipes.

Goat Cheese Stuffed Pork Balls

*Sorry for the iPhone pictures, but you get the idea*

These bad boys are TO DIE FOR. Seriously. I'm lactose intolerant and giving up cheese last year was one of the hardest things. I was so excited when I found out that I could have goat cheese, and I honestly use it so much. Most things that I cook have goat cheese in it because it's just heavenly.

Here are some of the ingredients that I used:

Ingredients

1 lb Lean ground pork

1 small yellow onion

Goat cheese (any flavor)

1 egg

1 tsp minced garlic

1 tsp sea salt

1 tsp pepper

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

1/2 tbsp italian spice

1/2 tbsp montreal chicken spice

1 tsp seasoning salt

1/2 tsp greek spice

As you can see, I use a lot of spice. I like a lot of different flavors, but I recommend using whatever type of spice are your favorite. I do not ever measure my ingredients, but I took a guesstimate at how much I pour into the bowl.

Preheat the oven to 400F.

Put pan in oven for 1 minute so it gets warm-ish. Put coconut oil on pan and it will instantly melt. Spread oil around to coat entire pan (you can use olive oil, cooking spray, whatever you prefer).

Cut off a large chunk of goat cheese. Roll it in your hands like Play-Doh, forming a large ball (this should only take about 5 seconds). Pull off a small piece and roll it into a ball and set aside. Do this until you've rolled as many small balls as you can. I like to make smaller pork balls, so I usually get 16-18 balls out of this recipe.

Chop onion - I dice mine as small as I can. I love onion, but I don't like the onions to be too chunky

In a large mixing bowl - mix pork, onion, spices, egg.

Now the fun part - mix everything in the bowl with your hands. Mix everything thoroughly so the spices/egg are evenly coating the pork.

Once everything is coated: pull off a piece of mixture, form it into a patty, put one of the pre-made goat cheese balls in the the center, pull meat up around the ball, and roll mixture in hands. I usually squish the ball down into a little patty (it'll plump up in the oven) - or you can leave it as a ball.

Do this with all balls/patties and line cookie sheet (I recently tried using a muffin tin and keeping each ball/patty separate and it worked great).

Put cookie sheet in oven and set timer for 25 minutes.

I flip the pork balls around the 12 minute mark so that they can be cooked evenly and all the way through.

Wait until the balls cool down and enjoy. I promise your friends and family will love these delicious treats.

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

I've debated telling this story on my blog for a few weeks because I didn't want to upset the 'culprit' of this horrific incident. However, I hung out with him on Friday night and got him nice and drunk, and he happily agreed to me writing this... so here we go.

Have you ever been this terrified? I'm talking, full blown, 'almost' panic attack because you're so freaked out? No? Just me? Okay, moving on...

Well today I'm going to tell you about the time that I was scared shhh-less.

A slight back-story: When Amanda and I first moved to Vancouver we lived in a huge 'shared' house with 7 or 8 other people. There was never a time when there wasn't at least 'one' person home. It came in handy when you were feeling lonely and looking for someone to hang out with. Most Friday and Saturday nights we all hung out at the local bar a few blocks from our house.

This one particular night I wasn't feeling too great and I wasn't really up for hanging out at a bar. My agenda was more along the lines of: browse pinterest, play on the interwebz, and sleep. Sleep, sleep, eat, and sleep some more.

All of my roommates went out on this one particular night. I honestly think it was the only time the entire time I lived in that house that I was actually alone in the house. As I had already planned ahead of time, I hung out by myself and had a grande old time. I started to get sleepy and decided to turn on Netflix. Once the movie was over, around 1:30am, I crawled into bed. I shut off my lights and snuggled up under the blankets to fall asleep, as I would normally do.

At the exact moment that my eyes closed, I heard something in the living room, outside my door. I lifted my head slightly off my pillow to try and hear the sound better - nothing. No sound at all. 'Faith, you're losing it. You're just hearing sounds' I say to myself.

BAM! My door flies open.

I lay completely still in my bed with my eyes glued on my door. All of the lights in the hallway & living room are off and all I can see is a silhouette of a person standing in my doorway staring at me. At this point I'm literally paralyzed with fear. I honestly couldn't have moved even if I wanted to. In my mind, I truly thought I was about to die - this was it for me. Faith Bowyer, died at the young age of 23 from a murderer breaking into her house. I'm assuming this is what would be on my gravestone, or something.

Back to the story... I lay there, paralyzed with fear, staring my silhouetted murderer in the eye. It was really dark, and I couldn't exactly stare him in the eye, but I gave the best 'leave now' expression that I could manage (despite the fact that presumably he couldn't see my face either). I digress...

So what have we got so far?
Alone. Spooky sound. Door swings open. Murderer/silhouette standing in my doorway.
Right. So the silhouette stands in my doorway for a moment, stumbles 2-3 steps into my room, he looks around, then walks back out of my room... slamming the door behind him. Cue my heart pounding/racing about 8,000x per minute. I count to ten in my head (it seemed like a good number), then I slowly and quietly climbed out of my bed, and tiptoed over to my door, locking the bolt. I then ran back to my bed, switched on my bedside lamp, crawled under my sheets and blanket - up to my eyeballs, and stared at the door with my cellphone in my hand.

I immediately text Amanda: 'Are you home?!?' No response. 'Amanda... seriously. Are you home? Did you bring someone home with you? Did either of you just come into me room?' Again, nothing. I then text Ambrose: 'Ambrose, are you home?' *Nothing* 'Did you just come into my room?' *Nothing*

I proceed to text two of my other roommates and nobody is answering. Of course not, because it's 1:30am and they're all out partying and having the time of their lives, while I'm at home with a murderer, about to be killed. Don't worry guys, I didn't die.

I proceed to lay in my bed and go through various scenarios in my head.

I could jump out of my ground floor window and run to the bar where my roommates are.

I could call 911 and catch the murderer.

I could lay in my warm bed, being terrified and doing nothing about it.

Obviously I opted for the last option.

Let me briefly explain my reasoning for doing nothing when I was about to die. I like 'scary' movies. I've watched a lot of them. The two people who always die first are: the fat ones (hey, that's me), and the dumb girls who walk around in the darkness saying 'hello?'. I had NO desire to die, so I stayed in my 'now-locked' room.

I think I probably fell asleep around 4:00am or so, and woke up around 7:00am. Having the worst night of my life, I needed some tea to start off my morning. I threw on my slippers, and headed upstairs to the kitchen. I was worried that I was going to find either: A. all of my roommates dead, or B. the entire house robbed because I neglected to defend it against the intruder. Luckily, neither of these scenarios took place. Instead, I found my lovely roommate, Jenya, in the kitchen cooking breakfast. As soon as I strolled into the kitchen, looking like someone who got no sleep, Jenya immediately started laughing...
Our conversation went a little something like this:

J: *laughs* Did you have an interesting night?
Me: Ugh, an interestingly bad night. Why are you laughing?
J: *still laughing* I heard that Ambrose came in your room last night.
Me: WHAT?! That was Ambrose?
*Cue Ambrose sheepishly walking into the kitchen*
Me: Ambrose... did you come into my room last night?
A: I am so sorry, I think I did.
Me: What do you mean you THINK you did?
A: I came home from the bar, pissed (drunk), and blacked out. I remember going to bed in my room and that's it. Then, this morning, I wake up in the *empty* room next to yours... naked. I had no idea WTF happened. I came back to my room and saw a few missed texts from you asking if I was home and if I came into your room.

Friends, this is where I possibly slapped him one or ten times. After my night of anxiety, panic attacks, extreme fear, it turns out that it was my sweetest roommate who accidentally came into my room... naked.

For the record, to this day, I have NOT let him live this down... nor will I ever let him live this down. I have the pleasure of making numerous jokes about his lack of manhood since I 'saw' him naked. (sorry mom and dad)

Thanks for being a good sport and letting me tell this story, Ambrose. Despite the fact that I thought I was going to die, I'm glad that I have this hilarious story to share. Love you!